I love Hive Scum, but it's not good for the game.

Genuine skill expression in this game isn't about doing a lot of damage (this is game sense and build knowledge); it's about taking none. Or taking as little as possible. Both I and a friend of mine have over 1k hours in this game, he's an effective player on other classes, but isn't good on hive scum. The main difference between he and I in this regard is that I have a competitive FPS background, so I know how to minimize the damage that I take. And a lot of it doesn't have much to do with core gameplay mechanics like sliding and dodging.

For example, Let's say that we're being laned by gunners and snipers. Regardless of what class he's on, he'll peak them at a wide angle, thus exposing himself to their line-of-sight, and eat tons of damage. Whereas I'll peak from a very narrow angle to isolate 1v1s against the gunners, and only peak when I intend to do damage and go back in cover to reload.

Most players don't do things like this, and the game doesn't teach you about it. In a PvP game, more perceptive players pick up on things like this by watching their opponents. This is a PvE game, though, and the AI doesn't do this. So there's minimal opportunity to learn by observation.

No, I'm not trying to humble-brag or anything, although I love this class, it objectively needs buffs because the skill floor of this class (skill required to get moderate value out of it) is way too high. This fact, coupled with it having the lowest CC in the game makes it the most punishing class to play.